Shooting puts spotlight on Confederate flag at SC Statehouse

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Tensions over the Confederate flag flying in the shadow of South Carolina's Capitol rose this week in the wake of the killings of nine people at a black church in Charleston. The symbolism was rendered more raw because the suspected gunman briefly escaped in a car bearing Confederate insignia.

South Carolina was the last state to fly the Confederate battle flag from its Capitol dome until a 2000 compromise moved it to a 30-foot flagpole elsewhere on statehouse grounds.

The flag was hoisted above the statehouse in 1962. Some saw it then as a symbol of Southern heritage. Others called it a defiant sign against the civil rights movement and a bitter reminder of slavery.